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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.

Board of Governors to vote on rule changes

The NBA's Board of Governors is meeting in Las Vegas on Thursday, and a source with knowledge of the talks told ESPN.com the agenda includes votes on several rule changes, especially expanding the use of instant replay. If passed, the changes would be in effect for the next NBA season.

The board, comprised of one owner from each team, is slated to vote on three instant replay issues, and one proposal about inbounding the ball:

• Instant replay for all flagrant fouls: The competition committee proposes to let referees review all flagrant fouls on video.

In May, Game 5 between the Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat was marred by a succession of violent fouls. First, the Pacers' Tyler Hansbrough fouled the Heat's Dwyane Wade hard. Less than a minute later Wade's teammate Udonis Haslem evidently sought retribution with a blow to Hansbrough's head and upper body. Both were given the milder designation of "Flagrant 1" and thus referees did not review video of either play mid-game. Under the rules at the time, only the harsher "Flagrant 2" calls could be reviewed on video by referees. After the game, NBA officials reviewed video of all three calls, upgraded Hansbrough's call to a Flagrant 2, while issuing suspensions for Haslem and the Heat's Dexter Pittman, who also committed a violent foul later in the same game.

The league long has sought to prevent escalations of violence, and in this a mid-game video review of Hansbrough's initial foul could have resulted in a Flagrant 2 call just after the play, which would have meant Hansbrough's automatic ejection and, therefore, no opportunity for Haslem to retaliate, and for the violence to escalate.

• Instant replay for late-game goaltending and restricted area: Owners also will vote on two more new uses of instant replay, to review goaltending and to see if a player was standing in the restricted area under the basket. Both kinds of plays can be very difficult in real time.

In the first, referees are asked to use the naked eye to judge if a shot is on its way up or has yet to reach the backboard, and is therefore fair game to block -- or past that point and off-limits to shotblockers. In the second, referees must both watch a collision in the lane and know with certainty if the defensive player had both feet entirely outside the semi-circular "no charge" zone under the hoop.

Instant replay often gives fans in the arena and at home views referees don't have. If approved, replay for goaltending and restricted area calls only would be available in the final two minutes of games, or in overtime.

• Inbounding from the sideline or baseline: The fourth and final proposed rule change slated for a vote is letting teams choose to inbound the ball from the baseline or the sideline after timeouts. Previously, teams would have lost that choice by, for instance, inbounding and dribbling the ball before calling the timeout.

Also slated for discussion, but not scheduled for votes, are changes to how the league handles flopping, the draft lottery and potentially adopting international basket interference rules.

• Flopping: This may be the biggest issue with fans, but is not slated for a vote Thursday.

NBA commissioner David Stern discussed the league's ideas on flopping after a June competition committee meeting in Miami: "One of the things we're looking at is a postgame analysis of flopping," he explained. "We could see something like (the current points system for technicals) ... If you continue to do this you have to suffer some consequences. What exactly that should be, and the progression is, is to be decided. We just want to put a stake in the ground and say this is not something we want to be a part of our game -- without coming down with a sledgehammer but to do it in a minimalist way to begin stamping it out."

Under the current points system for technicals, fines and suspensions mount as the offenses continue.

• Draft Lottery: The draft lottery has long been much-debated, with some saying it does too much to reward the league's worst teams and others saying it doesn't do enough.

The league instituted the lottery after complaints that teams were losing in order to get good picks, and has since tweaked the system in response to complaints that the weights favored certain kinds of teams. Further changes have been much-discussed, but are not likely to be approved Thursday. Stern has been dismissive of suggestions that big changes are necessary.

• Basket interference: The NBA's current basket interference rules prohibit touching the ball while it's "in the cylinder," an imaginary column above the rim. Under FIBA's international rules, there is no such prohibition, and Stern has long supported adopting FIBA's rule, which is in effect in the NBA's D-League, where it is said to create exciting plays at the rim without leading to higher injury rates as has been feared.

Rule changes approved now could result in new rules in effect for the 2012-13 NBA season. Items like flopping and the draft lottery, which are only under discussion, could also result in quick changes, even though there is not another Board of Governors' meeting scheduled soon -- the board can vote to approve rule changes without convening.

I like the pro-Miami spin in the last paragraph of the bullet on the Hansbrough flagrant.

Anyway the basket interference thing is something I'm surprised hasn't been changed already, makes the game a little more exciting.

"It's just unfortunate that we've been penalized so much this year and nothing has happened to the Pistons, the Palace or the city of Detroit," he said. "It's almost like it's always our fault. The league knows it. They should be ashamed of themselves to let the security be as lax as it is around here."

It'll be interesting to see how long this last as guards around the NBA watch their numbers plummet.

Rebounds up, shooting percentages down, would be odd initially.

"It's just unfortunate that we've been penalized so much this year and nothing has happened to the Pistons, the Palace or the city of Detroit," he said. "It's almost like it's always our fault. The league knows it. They should be ashamed of themselves to let the security be as lax as it is around here."

Comment

Take a look at the early 60's, when guards all shot in the upper 30's and there were 70+ rebounds to be had in any given game.

It would not surprise me at all for that one little rule to completely change the entire game and slingshot us back to the stone age, where guards were pretty much irrelevant unless they were super-sized.

I can see coaches putting in four 6'10"+ guys in the final seconds of a 3-point game and pretty much telling the other team to take whatever shot they want, knowing if it isn't a clean swish, its going to get swatted out of the rim.

They're calling it that because that's what it was upgraded to. The last paragraph of the flagrant foul rule is right on the money. I don't think it was a Flagrant 2 either, but theoretically that's what the refs would have upgraded it to had they had a chance to look at it on replay.

#DBAP

Comment

The way they worded it is BS. They say if Hans is out of the game there is no need for revenge. Well there wasn't any ****ing reason to retaliate anyway. Haslem was just being a whiny *****. Notice how they didn't even mention the Flagrant foul on Wade against Collison. Wade should have been thrown out and suspended but they don't mention the Heats gods

Comment

The way they worded it is BS. They say if Hans is out of the game there is no need for revenge. Well there wasn't any ****ing reason to retaliate anyway. Haslem was just being a whiny *****. Notice how they didn't even mention the Flagrant foul on Wade against Collison. Wade should have been thrown out and suspended but they don't mention the Heats gods

Because it wasn't upgraded after the fact to a Flagrant 2. Somehow.

#DBAP

Comment

The best thing about basketball, relative to hockey, soccer, and most other sports with a goal or net, is the absence of a goalie. If the NBA allows goaltending, I'll be done. That's a boring game - just have a big leaper play zone right in front of the rim and swat everything away. And change the name from "center" to goalie. Yawn. The rim is horizontal, unlike the other sports with legal and encouraged goalies, and the rim and backboard can allow a shot to fall in the rim or out of the rim. Once its out of the cylinder, its fair game. But interfering with the ball inside the cylinder should remain a violation for either team.

Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
And life itself, rushing over me
Life itself, the wind in black elms,
Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you